Reliability is a key concern in telecommunications, and it is therefore critical that a decrease in delivery quality of Short Message Service (SMS) messages must be detected early so that remedial measures can be timely implemented. Currently, there are two common solutions for real-time route quality measurement. The first solution entails processing delivery reports provided by the destination network of the delivering channel responsible for delivering the SMS messages to the end user. A major disadvantage of this solution is that some destination networks provide false delivery reports. This problem is further exacerbated by lack of options to discern whether the reports are accurate or false. Furthermore, many delivering channels do not currently provide any form of deliver reporting (DLR) or statistics.
The second method of detecting delivery interruptions requires using a third-party solution based on SIM (Subscriber Identify Module) routing. A major disadvantage of this method is that the third-party test SIM cards can be detected by the delivering channel and routed with higher quality than the standard SMS traffic. Therefore, the third-party reporting may not be representative of the actual delivery quality of that channel. Additionally, in SIM routing, live traffic cannot be tested and the cost of this method, per SMS message, is extremely high.
Thus, there exists an unresolved need for a method of determining a conversion rate of a delivery channel between a network operator partner and a destination network which also provides the ability to take remedial measures when the quality of the SMS delivery decreases below an acceptable threshold value.